It was as if some hideously strong monster had just yanked on the speeding Pibber's anchor, because in a single shocking instant, the Nazi Pibber went from sixty-five nautical miles an hour to zero the whole boat just snapping over on itself, ass-over-keel, as its bow was abruptly jerked down into the water.
As the bow went under, the stern shot up out of the waves and the whole boat did a complete floundering cart wheel, flipping over in mid-air and crashing down on the roof of its wheelhouse, smacking down into the water with an enormous explosive splash.
Race spun to see the overturned Nazi boat shrink into the distance behind them, sinking slowly.
Leonirdo Van Lewen weaved his Jet Raider in and out of the Nazi armada zipping lightly across the river's surface as he alternately disappeared and reappeared from behind the various helipad barges, Pibbers and Rigid Raiders.
Angry gunfire tang out all around him as he desperately tried to outrun the Rigid Raider assault boat and the Mosquito attack chopper that were in hot pursuit behind him.
Strangely there was only one Nazi on board the Rigid Raider behind him. it was the boat that he had assailed with gunfire earlier killing all its occupants bar one.
Truth be told though, Van Lewen didn't really care much for the boat or the chopper astern of him. He only had eyes for the vessel looming fifty yards in front of him.
The big white Catamaran.
The Nazi Command boat.
Twenty yards behind Van Lewen, the lone helmsman of the Rigid Raider filed wildly after the American soldier's river- bike, his bullets spraying all over the place as his long-bodied assault boat bounced madly over the waves.
Then abruptly the helmsman heard a loud whump! from somewhere behind him and he turned quickly—
—just in time to see Karl Schroeder's fist come rushing at his face.
Renee Becker rode her Jet Raider hard, flecks of spray assaulting her face like a thousand pinpricks.
To her immediate left, she saw Schroeder take the wheel of he Rigid Raider he had just jumped onto and give her the thumbs up.
Once she was sure he was in control of the Nazi boat, Renee immediately gunned the engine of her riverbike and swung in front of the Rigid Raider, using it for cover against the helicopter above them as she took off after Van Lewen, joining him in his pursuit of the command boat.
The massive Nazi command boat powered down the river at the head of the fleet.
About a half-dozen Nazis lined its aft rail—standing underneath the rotor blades of the white helicopter that sat off the helipad there-firing on Van Lewen.
But the big Green Beret deftly weaved his speeding Jet Raider left and right, ducking their fire, before suddenly— without warning—he whipped in behind a nearby helipad barge just astern of the command boat.
Under the cover of the barge, Van Lewen picked up the pace, gradually overtaking the bigger boat on his nimble Jet Raider.
in a few seconds, he came to the bow of the barge, where he took a last deep breath.
Then, when he was ready, he yanked his handlebars hard t the left.
Like a fighter jet swooping in after its prey, his Jet Raider swung in fast across the bow of the helipad barge and in behind the big twin-hulled command boat.
The Nazis on the stern of the massive catamaran immediately opened fire on him, but to Van Lewen's surprise, they -were suddenly taken down by Renee—screaming in from the left on her own Jet Raider, firing hard with her M-16 as she skipped across the water.
With the Nazis down, the two of them zoomed in underneath the bridge-like body of the catamaran, shooting into the shadows in between its One-hundred-and-fifty-foot hulls!
The two jet Raiders shot forward in the darkness beneath the catamaran, quickly came to the bow of the boat.
Van Lewen pulled in close to the right-hand hull. Renee took the left; Then she watched as Van Lewen reached up and grabbed hold of the bow rail above him and hauled himself up onto the boat's bow, disappearing from his view.
A second later, with a deep breath of her own, she reached up for the hand bow rail and began to climb aboard.
Gale-force wind assaulted her face as she emerged from the shadows beneath the catamaran and stood up on its left- hand bow.
She aw “van Lewen on the other bow, about fifty feet away from her, holding his M-i6 up and ready.
With the co—and boat powering along at the head of the fleet; the Nazis obviously hadn't expected anyone to board them from the front so there were no Commandos up here, not yet anyway.
Renee took in the catamaran around her. It was big— really big, mounted on top of the two enormous hulls it was sleek in the extreme, aerodynamic beyond belief; it was made up of two levels, both of which were hidden behind deep slanted windows. Wide side passageway hang down both of the big boat's flanks.
'Where to now?' he yelled.
'We take the boat and then we hold it until the choppers get here!' Van Lewen called back.
'What about the idol! If we can't take the boat, we should at least try to get the—'
At that moment two Nazi commandos came charging out from the port-side passageway, their G-11s blazing. But they were shooting from the hip, firing high; Van Lewen just whipped his M-16 around drew a bead on them and
